


so if you’re lonely (why’d you say you’re not lonely)

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 02, SO MUCH BANTER, a staple of good fic amirite, and, flirty flirts that turn into lots of crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 13:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: Despite all the rumblings in the office, Nathaniel is not going soft. He’s not.Nathaniel and Rebecca go on a trip for work.





	so if you’re lonely (why’d you say you’re not lonely)

**Author's Note:**

> **Word Count:** 3,200  
>  **Author's Note:** Thank you so much to Bethany, who beta'd this while she was feeling less-than-great. I am very very excited to have TWO shows you can beta my fic for.  
>  I'm kinda consumed by this pairing right now (if you are too come talk to me on tumblr or something!!) and couldn't ignore the urge to write fic about them. But this is my first attempt at CEG fic so let me know how I did?  
> this one-shot was inspired by [my own damn emotional tumblr post](http://catty-words.tumblr.com/post/160637892420/not-to-be-gross-but-i-hope-rebecca-has-a-good-cry)

“Are you sure you’re ready for this, Son?” Nathaniel can picture his father’s stern and skeptical face even though he’s only on speakerphone.

“Of course,” he says, and then cringes inwardly at the high pitch of his voice. Clearing his throat, he tries again. “I’ve given presentations to the partners before. Everything will go as planned.”

“Yes, but this is not some fruity lecture on why we should run a greener firm. This is about our work, and if you’re not completely prepared, we may have to deem this West Covina experiment a failure.”

“That will not happen, Sir.”

“It had better not. See you on Tuesday.”

When the line goes dead, he takes a deep, steadying breath before climbing onto his treadmill desk. He gives the presentation in his head between sprints.

Despite all the rumblings in the office, Nathaniel is not going soft. He’s not.

Last week when he sent Karen home early to attend to her sick snake? That had nothing to do with compassion. He was just tired of hearing her creepy whining.

And all the extended lunches he lets Darryl and his boyfriend take? It’s not like he thinks they’re a cute couple or anything. It’s simply easier to get work done when Darryl isn’t hovering over his shoulder like a puppy begging for scraps.

And he definitely hasn’t been going easy on Rebecca, letting her constant tardiness and lack of productivity slide. But if he were, could anyone really blame him? She’s been through a lot, and he’s not _heartless_ after all.

But he’s not soft, either. No siree.

Rebecca knocks on the door to his office, jarring him out of his thoughts, and he waves her in.

“You wanted to see me?” she asks, flopping down on his couch and examining her nail polish.

“I did,” Nathaniel says, turning the speed on the desk down to a casual stroll. “I know that during previous discussions on the matter, you’ve expressed your preference to stay behind while I present our progress to the senior partners back in New York.”

She seems to know what’s coming because suddenly all her focus is on him and she’s widening her eyes and pouting out her lower lip, which trembles just the right amount.

It’s not getting to him, though. Not even a little.

“But it turns out the big wigs are interested in meeting you,” he says, swallowing hard and tilting up his chin. “So I guess you’ll have to suck it up and wear a decent outfit for the first time in a month. We leave Monday morning.”

“What?” Rebecca jumps to her feet. “You can’t just spring this on me. Like, I mean, what if I had a pet? This would not be enough time to find someone to watch it. Do you know how many friends I have? Not many, and you can’t just leave anyone to look after a pet. It’s gotta be someone you trust and—”

“Good thing you don’t have a pet,” he says, cutting her off.

Her mouth tightens and she eyes him suspiciously.

He sighs, already exasperated with himself for asking, “What?”

“This isn’t a get into my pants thing, is it? Cause I’ve been watching a lot of the classic rom-coms in an attempt to torture myself, and, in addition to really igniting my fury over casual misogyny and Western beauty standards and the existence of men in general, it’s made me wary of heterosexual male and female best friends, paying some guy to be your date to any kind of formal event, time hops, time loops, _and_ work trips. They’re all dangerous. All of ‘em.”

“Great, I’ll be sure to make note of that.”

“Well? You didn’t answer my question.”

Nathaniel turns off the treadmill and leans over the desk, clasping his hands together and leveling her with a serious look. “Here’s the deal, Pudgy the Librarian—”

“Don’t make me lecture you about the Western beauty standards because I’ve got enough material to last me hours.”

“—do I still want to have sex with you? Strangely, yes, that hasn’t gone away. And has it escaped my notice that you’re no longer in a monogamous relationship? Of course not, who could forget the disaster that was your breakup. But my main focus is going to be on wowing the senior partners, as should yours. Anything that happens between us at the hotel will be some long-overdue icing on a successful business trip…cake.”

Rebecca raises her eyebrows. “Sometimes I wonder if even Freud himself could chip through the overwhelmingly large iceberg of pathologies inside that brain of yours.”

“Funny, I could say the same to you.”

She flips him off on her way out the door.

“Monday morning,” he shouts after her. “I’ll see you at LAX at six-thirty sharp!”

###

Rebecca is just barely on time.

“Since it looks like you actually washed your hair, I’ll give you a pass,” he says in greeting when she shuffles up to the table he’s been waiting at in the airport café.

“Can you please not be mean to me until I’ve had some coffee? I didn’t have time this morning because my flaky boss only told me I’d be needed for a cross-country trip three days ago.”

Nathaniel shakes his head, unimpressed, and slides a coffee over to her. “It doesn’t take weeks of foresight to set your alarm ten minutes earlier so you can stop somewhere on your way to the airport.”

She ignores him and takes a sip of the drink he ordered for her. “Mmm, hazelnut. My favorite.”

He allows himself a tiny grin. “I know.”

Before he can read too much into the pleased look she’s giving him, he slings his carryon over his shoulder and stands. “Come on, Pudgy, time to go check our bags.”

“Okay, seriously dude, stop projecting your body image issues onto me,” she says as she follows behind him. “I’ve already confronted and dealt with my internalized fatphobia.”

“Oh, really? I suppose your license has an accurate weight on it, then?”

“What? No. No one lists their _actual_ weight on their license. Not even you, Mr. My Weight Is Ninety-Eight Percent Muscle Mass.”

He stops in his tracks, smirking, and she nearly runs into him.

“Oh my god, please stop doing that,” Rebecca says, taking a step backward. “You look like a serial killer who just got away with their fiftieth murder or something.”

“I knew it,” Nathaniel says, letting that dig slide. “You definitely still want to have sex with me.”

She makes an exaggerated gagging noise, but a blush creeps into her cheeks. “Whatever. Like, please get a handle on your extreme narcissism, dude. Nothing’s going to happen between us.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The important thing is that you still want it to.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, and she bites her lip, holding eye contact for a second longer than necessary before pushing ahead of him and stomping her way through the terminal.

###

“Did you get the final copy of the PowerPoint I emailed to you Saturday morning?” he asks, not looking up from his notes.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re super anal?” He glares at her until she adds, “God, yes. I’m totally prepared for this, alright?”

“You can never be totally prepared.”

Rebecca gives him a funny look. “You suddenly don’t trust me to do my job, or what?”

“You _have_ been distracted lately.”

“Hey! There’s a totally understandable reason for that.”

“You’ve been processing your brutal breakup,” Nathaniel says, nodding.

At the same time, Rebecca says, “Trying to make Josh’s life implode is basically a full-time job.”

“Wait,” he says, setting his tablet screen-side down in his lap. “You’ve been doing what now?”

She twists in her seat, her face contorting with way too many emotions to identify. All he knows is that she’s feeling all of them intensely—so intensely that it’s hard to look at her straight-on. “Josh Chan needs to pay for what he did.”

Nathaniel gulps and tries for some levity. “You’re pretty much stuck at the anger stage of grief, huh?”

“I have a lot to be angry about,” she says, her voice unnervingly even.

“Sure.”

His noncommittal answer seems to piss her off more. With a scoff, she turns her back toward him and buries her face in a book, putting a definitive end to any and all conversation.

###

After a tense and silent ride to the hotel they’re staying at, Nathaniel and Rebecca barricade themselves in their respective rooms.

He orders room service for lunch and sends a quick text to his father to let him know they landed safely.

Around seven that evening, though, he starts to feel a bit like a caged animal. He orders something else from room service and then freshens up while he waits.

When it comes, he grabs his room key, tucks a just-in-case condom in his pocket, and walks down the hall.

He pauses outside Rebecca’s room and unbuttons one of the buttons on his shirt before knocking.

“I come with a peace offering,” he says when she answers, holding out the bottle of wine he ordered for them. She squints at him, expression unreadable, and then walks back into the room, leaving the door ajar. “Okay…”

It’s not exactly a rejection, so he inches inside.

“What was that?” He hears Paula’s voice and follows it toward the bed.

Rebecca’s leaning against the headboard, laptop balanced on her thighs. There are files and loose papers covering every inch of the comforter and an uncapped red marker rolling around among them.

Nathaniel sets the bottle down on the desk before leaning against the wall and watching her with curiosity.

“Oh, it was nothing—Plimpton with a bottle of wine.”

Paula makes a knowing sound in the back of her throat and says, “Such a classic booty-call move.”

“I know. He’s being totally obvious, isn’t he?” Rebecca shoots him a pointed look.

He shrugs in response. “There’s no shame in being straightforward. Subtlety is for losers who don’t know what they want.”

In a stunning display of maturity, she sticks her tongue out at him.

“Why am I attracted to you again?” he asks himself.

She’s already gone back to ignoring him.

“It might be good for you, you know?” Paula says. “Have some hot, no-strings sex. Might ease some of that tension you’ve been feeling.”

“I don’t know,” Rebecca says, frowning thoughtfully. “I don’t want anything to distract me from what’s really important right now. Also, he was a dick on the plane, so.”

“Hey!”

“Plus,” Paula says, “he is your boss. That could make things very uncomfortable around the office. He’s a fine piece of man meat, though. It’s a shame all that’s going to waste.”

“Hello, I’m standing right here,” Nathaniel protests, stepping up to the edge of the bed so he can lean into the camera’s frame and wave.

“So?” Paula asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

“So maybe you should show me a modicum of respect. I could write you up for talking about me like that.”

“Oh please,” Paula scoffs. “You’re the one trying to sleep with one of your employees.”

Nathaniel feels his entire body flush. “That is…a fair point.”

Rebecca shoves him out of her personal space and gives Paula an approving nod. “Law school’s been good for you.”

“Well, I was a highly argumentative person before. It’s helped me hone my skills, is all.”

“Definitely. Very effectively shut down.”

“Thanks, Cookie. Oh, I’ll call you later! The car alarm is going off and I can only assume Brendan is trying to steal it again. We’re at a bit of a dead end, anyway.”

Rebecca sighs. “Alright. Good luck with the kid. I’ll text you if inspiration hits.”

“So it’s probably too optimistic to assume that all this,” Nathaniel gestures to the mass of paperwork, “is work related.” She tilts her head at him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“So, are you here to judge me some more?”

“No,” he says, nodding over to the bottle of wine. “I’m here to unwind a little before a stressful day of work tomorrow.”

She regards him with caution. “If I drink that with you, that doesn’t automatically mean we’re gonna do it.”

“Yeah, I know how consent works.”

She sets her laptop on her nightstand and starts clearing off the bed. “There you go again, talking dirty.”

Nathaniel tries—and fails—not to smile. “You have a strange idea of what counts as seduction.”

###

“I swear it’s been _so hard_ to dig up dirt on Josh Chan,” Rebecca says, tipping into Nathaniel as she tries to tuck one leg under the other. She takes an impressive swig from the bottle of wine—their second of the evening—and then passes it to him. “Barring the super obvious exception, that man is like…sunshine. Like dopey magical fairy dust incapable of misdeeds.”

Though his inhibitions are already lowered, Nathaniel takes a long pull from the bottle. His nose burns and his eyes water, but he’s going to need to be pass-out drunk if she keeps insisting upon the topic of Josh.

“And he’s like impervious to sabotage or something, which is surprising because he’s so easily distracted. I figured we could ruin the whole ‘become a priest’ thing by sending a pretty and willing lady his way, but he never took the bait. But he can’t _actually_ be serious about it, right? I mean, he was supposed to commit to me, not God.” She grabs onto his shirt collar and tugs so hard their foreheads knock together as he turns. It doesn’t even give her pause, though. “What does God have that I don’t, huh?”

_Stability_ is the answer that immediately pops into his head, but then his gaze drifts down to her angrily scrunched lips, and the response is gone quicker than it came.

“Uh.” He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, drawing back a couple inches. “Have you ever realized you talk about Josh like he’s a character in a story you’re writing—more of an archetype, less of an actual human being?”

“What? No I don’t.”

“You kinda do.”

Rebecca scoots away from him on the bed, looking scandalized. “I most certainly do not do that.”

“Come on,” Nathaniel says, resisting the urge to grab her and pull her close again. “The first couple weeks I knew you, you referred to him almost exclusively as ‘the man of your dreams’. Now he’s ‘human sunshine’? Real people aren’t paragons, Pudgy.”

She grabs the pillow out from under her and swings it hard at his face, but thankfully she’s too drunk to have very good aim and he’s able to catch it and tug it out of her hands. Before she can pout too much, he passes the wine back to her.

She begrudgingly takes a sip.

“All I’m saying is, this weird hero-worship thing you have going on is staunching your ability to process what happened to you.”

Rebecca hugs the bottle close to her chest. “Who are you, Dr. Akopian?”

Nathaniel raises his eyebrows. “Who?”

“Nothing. Nobody.”

He watches her closely for a second before snagging the wine back and then continuing. “Anyway, this whole revenge scenario of yours isn’t a way to get back at the flip-flop. It’s a transparent attempt to keep your entire life revolving around this unworthy dipshit.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. It’s okay to admit it.”

“And this convoluted pep talk of yours has _nooooothing_ to do with trying to get me to say that I’m completely free of emotional attachments so we can have sex, I’m sure.”

“You’re the one who keeps bringing up sex, not me,” Nathaniel says, pursing his lips to keep himself from smiling.

Her mouth pops open and she gapes for a moment before sitting up straight and jabbing her finger at him. “Nope, nuh-uh, you’re not getting off the hook that easily. You just want an ‘I told you so’ moment, and I see right through you.”

“What would I have to say I told you so about?”

Rebecca pitches her voice low and says, “ _Commitment is stupid. It’s better to chase people around. We’re all sexual predators_ ,” in a mocking voice.

He blinks.

“Whatever, I’m paraphrasing,” she says, grabbing the wine back.

“Okay. Let me make sure I have this right. Because I don’t believe marriage is worth it, you’re not going to admit you were hurt and move on…to maintain some falsely perceived moral high ground?”

She sneers at him before taking a drink. “The situation’s a lot more nuanced than that.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks. “Then spell it out for me. What are the finer points of this situation?”

Rebecca takes a moment to size him up. “You really wanna know?”

“You seem to really enjoy talking about it, so why not?”

“Fine. Yeah. I’ve known Josh Chan most of my life, and fate kept throwing us together, you know? That’s why I’ve always known our love was the real deal—because nothing could stop it. Not years of separation. Not his girlfriend. Not my sleeping with his best friend. No, our connection was stronger than all those things.”

“Wait, slow down,” he says, rubbing at his forehead. “That is a _lot_ of new information to process.”

But she’s a runaway freight train and there’s no stopping her now. “And when it seemed like things really weren’t going to work out between us, I was going to accept it, okay? I really was. I was content to work on myself, but then fate intervened again and Josh and I were finally together for real. And I shared things with him…so much of myself. He _knew_ how important our love was to me. He _knew_ what it was gonna mean; what our marriage would be for me. But I guess the idea of sharing a lifetime with me is _so repulsive_ that he had to turn to _celibacy_ on our would-be _wedding day_!”

Her breathing is haggard by the time she finishes and she’s gripping the neck of the wine bottle so tightly that her knuckles are white and, damn, he’s not sure which of his impulses is stronger—to run from the room in terror or to give the human mess in front of him the comforting she so desperately needs.

He goes for the latter, easing the wine out of her hands and murmuring, “No. That’s not…that wasn’t what happened.”

She nods, shaking a single tear loose.

He gulps and brushes his knuckles across the overheated skin of her cheek, catching the tear with the pad of his thumb.

“Rebecca, no.”

The tears start gushing then, hot and unrestrained. She falls into him, burrowing her face into his chest. At first, he feels his lip curl in distaste, but then she makes a noise like a dying cat. With a resigned sigh, he gently guides her into his lap and wraps an arm around her waist, using his other hand to comb the curls back off her wet face.

“Why didn’t he l-l-love me?” She shudders with the force of her crying.

Nathaniel frowns, resting his forehead against the top of her head and taking a deep breath.

“I honestly have no idea,” he says, but he’s pretty sure he speaks too quietly for her to hear over the sound of her sobs.

He hugs her closer and thinks maybe—just maybe—he’s going a little bit soft.


End file.
